More recently the freeway is showing it's age.
Years of traffic have taken their toll as well as
the unsteady ground found in the valley which also
contains the boundary between the pacific and
north American plates. What was once a smooth
strip of concrete now has bumps and dips in some
locations. Another feature of the freeway is a
separate drainage system to take the run-off water
from the contaminated roadway away from the
adjacent Crystal Springs reservoir which is part
of the local drinking water supply. Environmental
ahead of its time.

Highway 280 and 680 on opposite sides of the bay
were built as an east west pair. Instead of
traditional simple cut and fill grading the hills
are sculpted and rounded like the distant hills
and are blended with trees and rocks to look
natural. Hence this image. In essence the freeway
is an architectural design blended with the
landscape. It is a beautiful way to enter San
Francisco from the south. You drive through green,
forested hills as you approach a city of 800,000
people. The highway is designed for an 70 or 80
mile per hour cruising speed but soon after
completion the speed was reduced to 55 because of
the energy crisis on the late 1970s. The Stanford
Linear Accelerator was built first and to avoid
disrupting the ground around the accelerator the
280 bridge over the accelerator was built before
the freeway was finished. For a time a bridge to
nowhere. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_2
80_ (California)